A question for Fr. Jenkins

Last updated on: April 27, 2009 at 8:50 am by Pia de Solenni

A question for Fr. Jenkins 2009-04-27T08:50:05-07:00 Pia de Solenni

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The situation surrounding Notre Dame’s honoring of President Obama gets more and more interesting.

The amazing response of believing Catholics has given me great consolation and hope. Here’s another example, an article by Lacy Dodd, a Notre Dame alumna who found herself pregnant in her senior year. Her boyfriend was also a senior at Notre Dame, but he encouraged her to have an abortion since the pro-life position of the Church is just “dining-room talk.” She touches on many profound themes, like this:

Those great things included the precious moment when my father came to meet his granddaughter on that glorious day she was born. He took one look at Mary in my arms and said to me, “This is your gift for making the right decision.” At that moment, I realized my little girl and I would be forever blessed.

In my experience with friends who have faced similarly difficult pregnancy situations, I have repeatedly seen how something utterly beautiful comes out of circumstances that looked rather bleak not so long before. A woman or girl’s life is not ended with an unplanned pregnancy

But my main interest in this article is her question for Fr. Jenkins, which is one that every woman student and every alumna ought to be asking Notre Dame’s president:

There have been many things written about the honors to be extended to President Obama. I’d like to ask this of Fr. John Jenkins, the Notre Dame president: Who draws support from your decision to honor President Obama—the young, pregnant Notre Dame woman sitting in that graduating class who wants desperately to keep her baby, or the Notre Dame man who believes that the Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of abortion is just dining-room talk?

I hear there’s a board meeting happening at the university right around now. I’d love to see how the board thinks such a question should be answered.

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